Changes Scilab 5

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Main changes between Scilab 4 & Scilab 5

- License - Graphical User Interface - Event Handling Functions - Graphics - Graphic file export - Numerical precision - Signal processing - Sparse LU factorization - Optimization - Genetic Algorithms - Param/parameters module - Simulated Annealing - Other Numerical Functions - Input/Output functions (files) - Regular expression features - String manipulation - System relative Functions - Time and date functions - Binary, octal and hexadecimal representation - JVM module

- Localization - Online Help management - Metanet: graph and network toolbox - Windows_tools - History manager - Consoles - Modules/toolboxes template - Source reorganisation - New Scilab Functions - Scilab modes - GNU/Linux - Unix - Windows - Dynamic/incremental link - Tcl/Tk - Java/Scilab API - Tests - Others improvements - Internal API - Scicos - Known incompatibilty

License

License changed to CeCILL (fully compatible with the GPL v2)
More information about the CeCILL
Therefore, Scilab is now a 100% free software.

Graphical User Interface

• Advanced docking system
  
• Follow the Tango Desktop Project
• GUI re-written in Java Swing:
  • Same GUI for all OS (Menubars, toolbars...)
  • Window docking available using FlexDock
• Uicontrols
  
  
  Uicontrols are now Java objects: they can be included in a graphic window with graphics and are managed as graphic handles in Scilab
• Uimenus are now Java objects and are managed as graphic handles in Scilab
• Uimenus and Uicontrols can be saved and loaded like other graphic entities using save and load functions
• Dialogs
  
  
  Dialogs are now Java objects (x_message, x_dialog...)
• Completion
  
  
  Completion on variable and function names avaible using TAB key or CTRL-SPACE

Event Handling Functions

• All the event handling functions "xclick", "xgetmouse" and the "event_handler"
  • they have been rewritten in Java
  • they use the same "-1000" code to signal the "window close" actions (previously "xclick" and "xgetmouse" used "-100" code)
• Obsolete functions:
  Using xgetmouse with a flag to avoid the event queue to be cleared is now obsolete. This functionnality will be removed in Scilab 5.1.

Graphics

• New rendering engine based on JOGL (Java Binding for the OpenGL API):
  • Support 3D hardware acceleration.
  • Facet ordering issues fixed with the use of Z-buffer.
    
• Text possibilities extended:
  • Support for floating point sizes.
  • Text object are able to handle matrices of strings.
• All graphic objects are fully operational both in 2D and 3D modes.
  
  
• Clipping is operational both in 2D and 3D modes.
• New property "filled" added to Axes object which controls axes box transparency.
• New functions:
  • swap_handles - Permute two handles in the graphic hierarchy.
  • relocate_handle - Move handles inside the graphic hierarchy.
  • get_figure_handle - Get a figure handle from its id without changing current figure.
  • rotate_axes - Interactive rotation of an Axes handle.
  • is_handle_valid - Check wether a set of graphic handles is still valid.
• New colormaps ( See demonstrations -> graphics -> Colormap ):
  
  • autumncolormap - red through orange to yellow colormap
  • bonecolormap - gray colormap with a light blue tone
  • coolcolormap - cyan to magenta colormap
  • coppercolormap - black to a light copper tone colormap
  • oceancolormap - linear blue colormap
  • pinkcolormap - sepia tone colorization on black and white images
  • rainbowcolormap - red through orange, yellow, green,blue to violet colormap
  • springcolormap - magenta to yellow colormap
  • summercolormap - green to yellow colormap
  • whitecolormap - completely white colormap
  • wintercolormap - blue to green colormap
• Behavior changes:
  • clf now deletes user menus which are children of the figure (Created by addmenu or uimenu).
• Obsolete functions:
  • xclea, xaxis, loadplots and xtape functions have been removed because of their incompatibilities with the new graphic syntax.

Graphic file export

• xs2jpeg, xs2png, xs2svg, xs2pdf functions added to export graphics under JPEG, PNG, SVG and PDF formats.
• Option color in xs2eps and xs2ps has been removed.
• Export GUI has been rewritten to match the new Java Swing style.

Numerical precision

Numerical precision of Scilab under Linux 32 bits has been switched to double precision (53 bits). Therefore, the precision on some specific computations is improved and the consistency between Microsoft Windows & GNU/Linux enhanced.

Signal processing

FFTW (Fastest Fourier Transform in the West) features added in Scilab.

• fftw - fast fourier transform that use fftw library
• fftw_flags - set computation method of fast fourier transform of the fftw function
• fftw_forget_wisdom - reset fftw wisdom
• get_fftw_wisdom - return fftw wisdom
• set_fftw_wisdom - set fftw wisdom
• disposefftwlibrary - free fttw library
• fftwlibraryisloaded - checks if fftw library is loaded

Sparse LU factorization

UMFPACK features added in Scilab. Many thanks to Bruno Pincon.

• umfpack - Solve sparse linear system
• umf_lufact - LU factorisation of a sparse matrix
• umf_lusolve - Solve a linear sparse system given the LU factors
• umf_luinfo - Get information on LU factors
• umf_luget - Retrieve LU factors at the Scilab level
• taucs_chfac - Cholesky factorisation of a sparse Symmetric Positive Definite (s.p.d.) matrix
• taucs_chsolve - Solve a linear sparse (s.p.d.) system given the Cholesky factors
• taucs_chinfo - Get information on Cholesky factors
• taucs_chget - Retrieve the Cholesky factorization at the Scilab level
• res_with_prec - Computes the residual r = Ax-b with precision
• cond2sp - Computes an approximation of the 2-norm condition number of a s.p.d. sparse matrix
• condestsp - Estimate the condition number of a sparse matrix
• PlotSparse - Plot the pattern of non nul elements of a sparse matrix
• ReadHBSparse - Read a Harwell-Boeing sparse format file
(See MatrixMarket for examples)

Optimization

• qpsolve - Linear quadratic programming solver
• qp_solve - Linear quadratic programming solver builtin
• quapro removed - This function has been moved in a toolbox (due to license restrictions from the Universidad de Cantabria)
• linpro removed - This function has been moved in a toolbox (due to license restrictions from the Universidad de Cantabria)

Genetic Algorithms

Genetic algorithms have been added into Scilab. Many thanks to Yann Collette

• coding_ga_binary - Performs conversion between binary and continuous representation
• coding_ga_identity - "no-operation" conversion function
• crossover_ga_binary - Crossover function for binary code
• crossover_ga_default - Crossover function for continuous variable functions
• init_ga_default - Initialize a population
• mutation_ga_binary - Performs binary mutation
• mutation_ga_default - Continuous variable mutation
• optim_ga - Flexible genetic algorithm
• optim_nsga - Multi-objective Niched Sharing Genetic Algorithm
• optim_nsga2 - Multi-objective Niched Sharing Genetic Algorithm version 2
• pareto_filter - Extracts non dominated solution from a set
• selection_ga_elitist - 'Elitist' selection function
• selection_ga_random - Random selection of individuals

Param/parameters module

This package allows to deal with list of parameters efficiently (like optim_set in Matlab from The Mathworks (TM)). Many thanks to Yann Collette

• add_param - Add a parameter to a list of parameters
• get_param - Get the value of a parameter in a parameter list
• init_param - Initialize an empty parameter list
• is_param - Check if a parameter is present in a parameter list
• list_param - List all the parameters name in a list of parameters
• remove_param - Remove a parameter and its associated value from a list of parameters
• set_param - Set the value of a parameter in a parameter list

Simulated Annealing

Simulated annealing (SA) is a generic probabilistic meta-algorithm for the global optimization problem. Many thanks to Yann Collette

• compute_initial_temp - Compute the initial temperature of the simulated annealing
• neigh_func_csa - The classical neighborhood relationship for the simulated annealing
• neigh_func_default - Computes a neighbor of a given point
• neigh_func_fsa - The Fast Simulated Annealing neghborhood relationship
• neigh_func_vfsa - The Very Fast Simulated Annealing neighborhood relationship
• optim_sa - Simulated Annealing optimization method
• temp_law_csa - The classical temperature decrease law
• temp_law_default - Computes the temperature of the next temperature stage
• temp_law_fsa - The Szu and Hartley Fast simulated annealing
• temp_law_huang - The Huang temperature decrease law for the simulated annealing
• temp_law_vfsa - The Very Fast Simulated Annealing from L. Ingber

Other Numerical Functions

• New functions
  • filter - signal filtering
  • erfinv - inverse of the erf function
• Support for rational fraction hypermatrices added
• Bug fixes
  • Major bug in qld fixed

Input/Output functions (files)

• New functions:
  • getdrives - get the drive letters of all mounted filesystems on the computer.
  • getrelativefilename - given an absolute directory and an absolute filename, returns a relative file name.
  • fullpath - creates an full path name for the specified relative path name.
  • is_absolute_path -
  • createdir - make new directory
  • removedir - remove a directory
  • deletefile - delete a file
  • fileext - returns extension for a file path
  • filesep - returns directory separator for current platform
  • pathsep - returns path separator for current platform
  • maxfiles - sets the limit for the number of files a scilab is allowed to have open simultaneously.
  • findfiles - Finds all files with a given filespec
• Profile changed:
  • ls under Linux/Unix has lost his second input argument (unix/linux command line option). It is now based on listfiles. ls in Scilab 5 will always return one file per line (2 per lines before)
  • cd and chdir now return a boolean instead of 0 or an error as it used to. T (true) means that operation was successful while F (false) means that operation failed
• Rewrite in native code:
  • isdir
  • newest

Regular expression features

Based on the library PCRE
Involved functions:

• grep(...,'r')
• regexp - find a substring that matches the regular expression string
• strindex(...,'r')
• strsubst(...,'r')

String manipulation

New functions:

• blanks - create string of blank characters
• isalphanum - check that characters of a string are alphanumerics
• isascii - tests if character is a 7-bit US-ASCII character
• isdigit - check that characters of a string are digits between 0 and 9
• isletter - check that characters of a string are alphabetics letters
• strchr - locate first occurrence of character in string
• strcmp - compare character strings
• strcmpi - compare character strings (case independent)
• strcspn - get span until character in string
• strncpy - copy characters from strings
• strrchr - locate last occurrence of character in string
• strrev - returns string reversed
• strspn - get span of character set in string
• strstr - locate substring
• strtod - convert string to double
• strtok - split string into tokens

System relative Functions

• New functions:
  • getdebuginfo - returns informations about scilab and your system
  • getscilabmode - returns scilab mode
  • getvariablesonstack - get variable names on stack of Scilab
  • getmd5 - get the MD5 checksum of strings or files.
  • getmodules - returns list of modules installed in Scilab
  • with_module - Checks if a Scilab module is installed
  • islittleendian - Checks if machine architecture is "little-endian"
  • librarieslist - get Scilab libraries
  • libraryinfo - get macros and path of a scilab library
  • completion - returns words that start with the text you pass as parameter.
  • add_profiling - prepare a function for profiling
  • remove_profiling - remove profiling instruction in a function
  • reset_profiling - reset profiling data of a function
• Rewrite in native code:
  • warning
• Profile changed:
  • unix_g - a third output argument (optional) has been added to get standard error output in a variable.

Time and date functions

New functions:

• clock - return current time as date vector
• eomday - return last day of month
• weekday - return day of week
• now - return current date and time

Binary, octal and hexadecimal representation

New functions:

• bin2dec - return integer corresponding to a binary form
• bitand - AND applied to binary representation of input argument
• bitcmp
• bitget
• bitor - OR applied to binary representation of input arguments
• bitxor - XOR applied to binary representation of input arguments
• dec2bin - return binary representation
• dec2oct - return octal representation of integers

JVM module

New functions:

• with_embedded_jre - checks if scilab uses a embedded JRE
• system_getproperty - gets the system property indicated by a specified key.
• javaclasspath - set and get dynamic Java class path
• javalibrarypath - set and get dynamic java.library.path

Localization

• All the standard, warning and error messages have been rewritted to uniform output and also to provide more feedbacks to the user.
• Scilab is coming with the included french localization (basic GUI for the beta version)
• Russian localization (by Vorona Aleksey)
• Traditionnal chinese localization (by Yung-Jang Lee)
• Simplified chinese localization (by Shiqi Yu)
• New functions:
  • gettext(string) / _(string) - get text translated into the current locale and domain
  • dgettext - get text translated into the current locale and a specific domain domain
  • setlanguage(string)
  • getlanguage()

Online Help management

• New Java help browser
• New help system based on DocBook
• MathML capability in the documentation
• LaTeX capability in the documentation
• New functions:
  • check_help
  • del_help_chapter
  • add_module_help_chapter
  • del_module_help_chapter
  • xmltojar (the documentation provided in Scilab)
  • xmltopdf
  • xmltohtml
• loaddefaultbrowser function and %browsehelp global variable have been removed: The new Java help browser is the only help browser.
• For more information, have a look to http://wiki.scilab.org/howto/scilab_documentation_kit & SCI/modules/helptools/doc directory

Metanet: graph and network toolbox

Data structures have been reorganized and made more flexible (user can define and handle its own data fields for nodes and edges)


New functions:

• hilite_edges - highlights a set of edges
• unhilite_edges - unhighlights a set of edges
• hilite_nodes - highlights a set of nodes
• unhilite_nodes - unhighlights a set of nodes
• add_edge_data - associates new data fields to the edges data structure of a graph
• add_node_data - associates new data fields to the nodes data structure of a graph
• arc_length
• nodedatafields - returns the vector of node data fields names
• set_edges_id
• set_nodes_id
• show_arcs - highlights a set of arcs
• show_edges - highlights a set of edges
• update_graph - converts an old graph data structure to the current one

Windows_tools

New functions:

• consolebox - show or hide console box
• findfileassociation - searches for and retrieves a file association-related string from the registry.
• dos - shell (cmd) command execution
• win64 - determine whether Windows x64 version of Scilab
• istssession - determine if scilab is launched from a ms terminal service session.
• getsystemmetrics - retrieves the specified system metric or system configuration setting.
• createGUID - creates a Globally Unique IDentifier (GUID)
• setdefaultlanguage - set and save default language on Windows

History manager

• New functions:
  • displayhistory - displays current scilab history
  • addhistory - add lines to current history
  • saveconsecutivecommands - Save consecutive duplicate commands
  • saveafterncommands - Save the history file after n statements are added to the file.
  • gethistoryfile - get filename used for scilab's history
  • sethistoryfile - set filename for scilab history
  • removelinehistory - remove the Nth line in history.
  • historysize - get number of lines in history
  • historymanager - enable or disable history manager
• Rewrite:
  • loadhistory
  • savehistory
  • gethistory
  • resethistory

Consoles

• Based on a joint project Artenum - INRIA/Scilab called Jrosetta
• Completion
  • Functions
  • Variables
  • Paths
• Advanced completion also available in NW & NWNI modes

Modules/toolboxes template

A template model has been defined to normalize how modules and toolboxes should be.

• See on the Scilab Wiki for module arch
• See contrib/toolbox_skeleton/ for toolboxes arch

Source reorganisation

• Source code split into dedicated and clear modules
• Clear separation between the Scilab gateway (argument management, etc) and the code
• Use XML declaration for the list of functions
• Use XML declaration for the list of modules (and activation or not)
• Massive cleanup of the code
• Thousand of warnings removed
• First step to a future Scilab API

New Scilab Functions

Function rewritten from Fortran to C for better maintenance

Scilab modes

Scilab is now available in four modes:

• Normal mode: The standard Java
• NW (No window) mode: Run in command line but can launch help or rendering/graphics (loads the Java Virtual Machine)
• NWNI (No window No interactive) mode: Run in command line but no help, TCL or rendering (does not load the Java Virtual Machine)
• API mode: Scilab as API/computing engine

GNU/Linux - Unix

• Please note that most of these points are outputs of the SCOS project
• New configure (based on autoconf)
• New compilation process (based on automake and libtool)
• Parallel build (make -j)
• FHS compliant
• Switched to dynamic libraries
• Advanced numerical libraries can be used (Atlas, MKL...)
• Use librairies when available on the system
• Build by default with gfortran
• Versioned libraries
• Easier profiling (memory and call graph)
• Better support of 64 bits CPU
• Better startup script
  • Debug
  • Profiling (valgrind)

Windows

• Compilation process:
  • Visual Studio 2008 solution (requires Intel Fortran 10.1) support (x86 & x64)
  • Visual Studio 2008 express solution (fortran conversion with f2c) support
• Dynamic libraries
• Atlas 3.8 support (Core 2 Duo and more support)
• Intel Math Kernel Library support
• Better support on Windows Vista

Dynamic/incremental link

• Module renamed to dynamic link
• Visual Studio 2008 support
• Intel Fortran 10 support on Windows
• Under Linux/Unix, now based on basic autotools for the detection of compiler and compilation.
• New functions:
  • getdynlibext - get the extension of dynamic libraries on your operating system.
• Function improved:
  • ilib_for_link & ilib_build - now accept the actual filename (not only filename.o but also filename.c or filename.f)

Tcl/Tk

• New event loop
  • Tcl/Tk thread separated from the Scilab one.
• Provided with version 8.5 of Tcl/Tk
• Removed Functions:
  • demoplay is obsolete
  • sciGUIhelp is obsolete
• Some Tcl/related functions have been tagged as obsolete (See "obsolete scilab functions")
• TCL_CreateSlave now allows to create "safe" or "unsafe" slave interpreters (new option added). Default switched from safe to unsafe interp.

Java/Scilab API

Refactoring of the Java API

Tests

• Tests are now embedded into Scilab (binary and sources)
• Many tests added:
  • Unitary
  • Non regression
  • Benchmarks
• New functions:
  • test_run
  • unitary_test_run
  • nonreg_test_run

Others improvements

Update to the new version of Lapack (3.1.1)

Internal API

• Used in functions GetRhsVar, PutLhsVar... The datatype naming have been changed to (These declarations are in modules/core/includes/stackTypeVariable.h):
  • "c" => STRING_DATATYPE
  • "S" => MATRIX_OF_STRING_DATATYPE
  • "d" => MATRIX_OF_DOUBLE_DATATYPE
  • "r" => MATRIX_OF_RATIONAL_DATATYPE
  • "I" => MATRIX_OF_VARIABLE_SIZE_INTEGER_DATATYPE
  • "i" => MATRIX_OF_INTEGER_DATATYPE
  • "b" => MATRIX_OF_BOOLEAN_DATATYPE
  • "z" => MATRIX_OF_COMPLEX_DATATYPE
  • "s" => SPARSE_MATRIX_DATATYPE
  • "l" => LIST_DATATYPE
  • "t" => TYPED_LIST_DATATYPE
  • "m" => MATRIX_ORIENTED_TYPED_LIST_DATATYPE
  • "p" => SCILAB_POINTER_DATATYPE
  • "h" => GRAPHICAL_HANDLE_DATATYPE
  • "f" => EXTERNAL_DATATYPE
• define TRUE_ and FALSE_ removed for TRUE and FALSE
• Many other things... Have a look to the sources...

Scicos

• Test framework currently under development:
  • Unitary tests
  • Non-regression tests (vs. Scicos 4.2 in Scilab 4.1.2)

Known incompatibilty

• The Metanet graph data structure has been completely redesigned see update_graph for translation, Graph saving is not more possible in a formatted way.
• Due to a bug fix the xstringb x and y arguments meaning had changed "lower" and "left" are now relative to user coordinates order.
• The xgetmouse flag option has been removed
• Due to license restrictions from the Universidad de Cantabria, the quapro and linpro functions are no more available in the Scilab distribution, but as an external toolbox.
• Some uses of the pow function could cause issues for base ~ 1.0 and large exponent (See http://sources.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=706)

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